"There"s one called "Pancakes.""
"Sure? Sounds rummy."
"That"s all right. You have to get a queer t.i.tle nowadays if you want to sell a book."
"Go on, then. Jam it down."
"--and "Pancakes." I hate to bother you, but if you could send me your autograph I should be more grateful than words can say. Yours admiringly."
"What"s a good name? How would Dorothy Maynard do?"
"You want something more aristocratic. What price Hilda Foulke-Ponsonby?"
Dunstable made no objection, and Linton signed the letter with a flourish.
They installed Mrs. Foulke-Ponsonby at Spiking"s in the High Street.
It was not a very likely address for a lady whose blood was presumably of the bluest, but they could think of none except that obliging stationer who would take in letters for them.
There was a letter for Mrs. Foulke-Ponsonby next day. Whatever his other defects as a correspondent, Mr. Watson was at least prompt with his responses.
Mr. Montagu Watson presented his compliments, and was deeply grateful for all the kind things Mrs. Foulke-Ponsonby had said about his work in her letter of the 19th inst. He was, however, afraid that he scarcely deserved them. Her opportunities of deriving consolation from "The Soul of Anthony Carrington" had been limited by the fact that that book had only been published ten days before: while, as for "Pancakes," to which she had referred in such flattering terms, he feared that another author must have the credit of any refreshment her bereaved spirit might have extracted from that volume, for he had written no work of such a name. His own "Pan Wakes" would, he hoped, administer an equal quant.i.ty of balm.
Mr. Secretary Morrison had slept badly on the night before he wrote this letter, and had expended some venom upon its composition.
"Sold again!" said Dunstable.
"You"d better chuck it now. It"s no good," said Linton.
"I"ll have another shot. Then I"ll try and think of something else."
Two days later Mr. Morrison replied to Mr. Edgar Habbesham-Morley, of 3a, Green Street, Park Lane, to the effect that Mr. Montagu Watson was deeply grateful for all the kind things, etc.----
3a, Green Street was Dunstable"s home address.
At this juncture the Watson-Dunstable correspondence ceases, and the relations become more personal.
On the afternoon of the twenty-third of the month, Mr. Watson, taking a meditative stroll through the wood which formed part of his property, was infuriated by the sight of a boy.
He was not a man who was fond of boys even in their proper place, and the sight of one in the middle of his wood, prancing lightly about among the nesting pheasants, stirred his never too placid mind to its depths.
He shouted.
The apparition paused.
"Here! Hi! you boy!"
"Sir?" said the stripling, with a winning smile, lifting his cap with the air of a D"Orsay.
"What business have you in my wood?"
"Not business," corrected the visitor, "pleasure."
"Come here!" shrilled the novelist.
The stranger receded coyly.
Mr. Watson advanced at the double.
His quarry dodged behind a tree.
For five minutes the great man devoted his powerful mind solely to the task of catching his visitor.
The latter, however, proved as elusive as the point of a half-formed epigram, and at the end of the five minutes he was no longer within sight.
Mr. Watson went off and addressed his keeper in terms which made that worthy envious for a week.
"It"s eddication," he said subsequently to a friend at the "Cowslip Inn." "You and me couldn"t talk like that. It wants eddication."
For the next few days the keeper"s existence was enlivened by visits from what appeared to be a most enthusiastic bird"s-nester. By no other theory could he account for it. Only a boy with a collection to support would run such risks.
To the keeper"s mind the human boy up to the age of twenty or so had no object in life except to collect eggs. After twenty, of course, he took to poaching. This was a boy of about seventeen.
On the fifth day he caught him, and conducted him into the presence of Mr. Montagu Watson.
Mr. Watson was brief and to the point. He recognised his visitor as the boy for whose benefit he had made himself stiff for two days.
The keeper added further damaging facts.
"Bin here every day, he "as, sir, for the last week. Well, I says to myself, supposition is he"ll come once too often. He"ll come once too often, I says. And then, I says, I"ll cotch him. And I cotched him."
The keeper"s narrative style had something of the cla.s.sic simplicity of Julius Caesar"s.
Mr. Watson bit his pen.
"What you boys come for I can"t understand," he said irritably.
"You"re from the school, of course?"
"Yes," said the captive.
"Well, I shall report you to your house-master. What is your name?"
"Dunstable."
"Your house?"
"Day"s."
"Very good. That is all."